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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Rondo

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Rondo

By George Moore (1852–1933)
 
(From Flowers of Passion, 1878)

DID I love thee? I only did desire
To hold thy body unto mine,
And smite it with strange fire,
Of kisses burning as a wine,
And catch thy odorous hair, and twine        5
It thro’ my fingers amorously.
        Did I love thee?
 
Did I love thee? I only did desire
To watch thine eyelids lilywise
Closed down, and thy warm breath respire        10
As it came through the thickening sighs,
And speak my love in such fair guise
Of passion’s sobbing agony.
        Did I love thee?
 
Did I love thee? I only did desire        15
To drink the perfume of thy blood
In vision, and thy senses tire
Seeing them shift from ebb to flood
In consonant sweet interlude,
And if love such a thing not be,        20
        I loved not thee.